From inside the flap

Alchemy follows the adventures of several people, over five sexually charged days that change their lives forever. And as they tell their stories another story slowly emerges.

Each character wants something more from life, whether they know it or not. The perfect confluence of personality, place, and event create unstoppable and unpredictable reactions that propel them out of their comfort zones and into new worlds of sexual experience and personal fulfillment.

Set in one of the world’s most exciting cities, there is an ultra-luxurious hotel, a high stakes poker game, one wild party, and a bittersweet love story, all whirling around one unforgettable character at the center of the action. The real story, being more than the sum of its parts, only becomes clear in the final chapter.

ALCHEMY (Excerpt)

Chapter One: Chemistry

About a year ago there was a fabulous party at the Wilmont.

Close, intimate, intense, personal…bodies crush, inhibitions dissolve and we become one, the same, and in this alchemy souls connect. That's its function.

And they were at this party, but not together. Someone introduced them.

The Girls knew their type: part of the Club who just didn't know they were members.

A few of the Girls were strictly hardcore - girls who believe in a deep and shared dream-future absent of men, never conceding that the door swings both ways, forever disavowing that the Heart wants what the Heart wants, though the Mind may be shocked to learn it, and for fraternity might accept them, but never like them.

A couple of the Girls spoke up - said leave them alone, they'll just figure it out for themselves one day. That's best. Which had been their experience.

And they did.

"I've seen you before," said Janet, taken aback, staring into Laura's clear blue eyes so intently that it should have been unnerving, but Laura didn't want to stop looking at Janet either.

Laura smiled briefly and became even more striking, self-effacing, like catching a private glimpse of light.

"Where?"

"I was sitting at the bar in my favorite hotel," said Janet. "The Thomas. That's the hotel."

Laura shrugged, not remembering.

"I was sitting in the Library…the bar…trying to get picked up. That's how I got into this. When I'm on shift cleaning rooms, I'm invisible. The staff always knows what's going on. I can even get into suites to check out the scene, but after, I change and sit in the bar and I'm very pick-up-able. The Swags never know it's me.

"So there I am, in a skintight dusky crimson cocktail dress, and you came in with this guy and sat down at the one booth exactly where I could see you. My heart just about skipped a beat. I thought you were the most beautiful, vulnerable person I have ever seen. I could not take my eyes from you. My heart was pounding.

"I'm sorry," Janet apologized. "I can't explain it."

Laura said nothing.

"Right away, I could tell things weren't going well between you and him. The waitress brought some drinks. But sure enough, you have some words and the guy gets up and leaves you there."

"Ah," said Laura, smiling again and blushing slightly. "That was me."

"But I didn't know," said Janet. "I just sat there like an idiot, leaning on the bar, staring."

Laura looked down. "Thank you," she said, still smiling, and took a big breath and started to feel warm. The whole time at this party she'd tried to relax, but she'd felt cold. The other women were so loud and harsh. And wanting to argue. She looked at Janet, who has the greenest eyes. And every moment she is with her, the more she feels like here is the something that she has been missing…in this woman.

"So," said Janet, "I just sat there. The server left you alone. I guess she was waiting for your guy to come back to ask if you wanted to order. That's what I was doing. I was thinking, 'How do I talk to you when your boy friend is going to come back any second from the washrooms?'"

"But then I left," said Laura.

"Yes! Yes, you got up all of a sudden and left, and I watched you go, and I so desperately wanted to say something, or get up and follow. But I didn't, and I thought, 'Oh no. This is one of those times that will happen only once in your life. And it's over and I did nothing.'"

Laura said nothing - just looked at Janet.

"I'm sorry," said Janet, looking down, her cheeks feeling hot, and suddenly she knew that she had been standing at the edge and had just cast herself into the void.

In the same moment, they looked into each other's eyes, and without words put down their drinks and walked together out of the party, out of the building and into the street. It was damp and cool, a clear night.

The river was only two blocks away. Instinctively they turned and walked in the opposite direction, heading into midtown. After about five minutes, Laura said, "Where are we going?"

Janet put her hand around Laura's, and Laura interlocked her fingers with Janet's.

"I don't know," said Janet. Her plan had been to find a Starbucks. They're like a rash all over midtown.

Neither could remember what, if anything, was said in the cab. They sat face to face, holding each other's hands, the ride like the crank on a generator, every second a turn of the rotor, building up a charge between them, emerging from nowhere into being. Janet gave the driver some money when the car stopped, and they almost ran up the stairs to Janet's apartment.

The second they were through the door and bolted it, the clothes started coming off. Fast, frantic - the pricy shoes, the jackets discarded, the cocktail dress, the little skirt, the pantyhose, all the way down the hall, through the tiny living room with Janet leading the way into the bedroom, where Laura slipped out of her panties and pulled down Janet's g-string as Janet undid the hooks to her bra.

For the first seconds their eyes and hands moved over the other's body, touching, excited, voltaic discovery.

Janet was close to a head taller, and she wanted to kiss but it seemed wrong to bend over and make Laura look up. At the same moment both looked intriguingly down between the other's legs. Janet was shaved and her large labia were dark, full and distended. Laura's crotch was covered with a fuzz of thick blonde hair, and her vagina was a thin pink gash in a pale mons.

They smiled and could feel the other smile without looking, and climbed into the bed and it was Laura who surprised Janet, took Janet's head in her delicate hands and kissed. They kissed as if it was the first time it had ever meant anything.

Their bodies joined like magnets. Legs intertwined. Breasts pressed into breasts. Laura slid down slightly, pressed in hard with her abdomen, bearing down on Janet's clit with her thigh. Each ground hard into the other's privates, hard. Their hands explored and electricity crackled off their fingertips.

Laura started it first. She started to laugh. And she couldn't stop smiling when she wasn't kissing. And when she smiled Janet was overcome.

It was all so much, it brought Janet to orgasm. It felt, she knew, it was just the tip of the iceberg. And then tears started to roll out of Laura's eyes even while she was laughing. She pushed herself away to look at Janet's broad shoulders and run her hands over those stunning breasts, and then Janet pulled her as close as she could and felt their bodies dissolve into one and broke and cried.